Just when I thought I’d said pretty much all I had to say (for now, anyway) about wanted posters, I’m eager to report that Freeman’s in Philadelphia (FreemansAuction.com), in their Printed and Manuscript Americana auction on January 29, will be auctioning a rare Pinkerton flyer for Butch Cassidy, Harry Longbaugh (aka the Sundance Kid), and other members of the so-called Hole-in-the-Wall Gang (alternatively the Wild Bunch—not to be confused with the Sam Peckinpah film), issued after the robbery of Great Northern Railway Express train no. 3 near Wagner, Montana, on July 3, 1901, in which $40,000 (almost $1.25 million today) was taken. The estimated hammer price for the flyer is $8,000 to $12,000.

I find this exciting on so many levels . . .

For one thing, it’s not just one of the rare Pinkerton flyers for Butch and Sundance (who is not pictured); it’s an early example I’ve never seen before—circulated a good three years before the better-known one of November 14, 1904, issued after the gang knocked over the First National Bank of Winnemucca, in Winnemucca, Nevada.

I asked the great Marshall Trimball, former columnist for True West and my go-to authority for all things Old West, if he knew of this particular flyer; he told me he’d seen it in an old book some years ago—further evidence of the flyer’s rarity, because if Marshall Trimble has seen it only once, then there have gotta be precious few of them in existence.

For another thing, as readers of this blog already know, a 1901 wanted flyer with printed photos rather than affixed photos is really early.

As for the auction estimate: it beats the hell out of me. All I know is it’s out of my league. That said, a somewhat damaged example of this flyer came up in a Heritage auction in 2011 and sold for $14,340 with the buyer’s premium—and Heritage notes someone offered $19,000 for it in 2014. So Freeman’s estimate may be on the low side. (Incidentally, I note that an example of the more often encountered but still extremely rare 1904 flyer with the Sundance Kid’s photo sold in a Morphy auction on June 24, 2023, for $19,965, including the buyer’s premium.)

For those who would like a really interesting description of the train robbery that prompted the issuance of the 1901 flyer—which offers a $6,500 reward, incidentally—have a look at the listing for the auction lot at https://freemansauction.com/auctions/6465-printed-and-manuscript-americana/lot/152. The Freeman’s folks note that, “while this circular lists Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as having participated in the July 3rd crime, there is debate as to whether one or both of them actually took part in the heist. Some accounts indicate that at the time of the crime they were in Argentina, having fled there earlier that year, while other accounts record them arriving there the following year, in 1902. Furthermore, the exact number of perpetrators or members who participated is unclear, and while this poster lists Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Kid Curry, and Deaf Charley as the culprits, others such as Bill ‘News’ Carter and Ben Kilpatrick could also have participated.”

That’s one of the big things about the Butch Cassidy legend: where he was and when—and even if he was actually killed in the remote settlement of San Vicente, Bolivia (population 50 in 2001), on November 7, 1908, at age forty-two. Family members insist he survived the shootout and turned up in his hometown of Circleville, Utah, in the 1920s, but that’s another story.

What does seem to be widely accepted: Butch never killed anyone himself and was as smart, good-hearted, personable, and charismatic as the character portrayed by Paul Newman in one of the iconic “rebel” films of the 1960s.

Anyway, look for an update with the auction result on NorthwestCollector.com!

The 1969 film that made Butch and Sundance household names, directed by George Roy Hill, from a screenplay by William Goldman.